Dear is that shed to which his Soul conforms,

And dear that hill, which lifts him to the storms.*

Such accordingly was the patriotic emotion that a familiar tune called the Rance des Vaches never failed to excite in the breasts of Swiss Troops, in Foreign service, that the Milk-Maid's Carol was forbidden under the severest penalties, as being sure to produce among them discontent, or desertion.

Switzerland is a triangular nook, in the centre of Europe, inhabited by two millions of moral and industrious PeopleCatholic, or Protestant, according to the boundaries of their Cantons-and speaking, as their National language, German, French,

⚫ Goldsmith.

French, or Italian-according to the frontier they approximate.

It includes at different degrees of elevation, the temperature of every climate-from the frozen circle, to the burning zone; and the delighted Naturalist may there trace, in the succession of a morning walk, the various productions of Italy, Germany, and Lapland.

An elevation of thirty fathoms is equal to a degree of distance from the Equator. At twelve or thirteen hundred fathoms

[seven or eight thousand feet] you experience the frigidity of the eightieth degree of north latitude: and at nine thousand feet above the level of the Sea, snow rarely melts, even in the height of Sum

mer

mer-a degree of cold in which nothing will vegetate, but mosses and lichens.

Yet the general impression perceived by Those who scale the higher Mountains, is an unknown facility in breathing -a lightness of body, and a serenity of mind. The air is felt to be more pure and subtile; and Meditation there enjoys a degree of sensibility, approaching tran quil rapture.

Mont Blanc, and several other summits of the great chain of the Alps, are fifteen thousand feet high, and may be considered as the highest Mountains in the Old World-since they considerably exceed the elevation of Mount Etna, and the Peak of Teneriffe. But they yield the precedence, without dispute, to Chimborazzo,

borazzo, in South America, which is at least twenty thousand feet, or four miles, in perpendicular altitude; and whose frigid summit has never been attained by the boldest Adventurers. It is perhaps forever inaccessible to the researches of Philosophy, since the Human frame is incapable of supporting the rarefaction of the atmosphere, at a much smaller elevation than the summits of the Andes.

We are informed by a scientific Observer that fossil shells, and other Marine petrifactions, are found in the Alps and Pyrenees as high as six thousand feet above the level of the Sea. Beyond these Secondary Mountains, arise Naked Rocks, which contain nothing but the

simplest

1

simplest aggregations of Mineral substances, and would therefore appear to have held perpetual dominion over the shoreless waters, from which Islands, and Continents, seem to have emerged, in volcanic concussions.

The Crags of Switzerland abound with rock-chrystal, which is industriously collected, by the Peasants, to ornament the Cabinets of the Curious; and Mines of iron, and Quarries of rock-salt, are worked in different Vallies, for Foreign and Domestic consumption.

The lakes teem with fish, particularly Trout, which have been sometimes caught weighing forty or fifty pounds.